Square Enix

Square Enix has been on a roll as of late in churning out mobile ports of popular game franchises (Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest) in the midst of several lack-luster original mobile games such as the Chaos Rings franchise. Indeed Square still has ways to go before lining itself up with mobile games publishing giants in Japan like Gung-Ho, Gumi, Gree, and the like.

Enter the company’s latest original entry into the free-to-play mobile gaming platform: Heavenstrike Rivals ( released globally in March 2015) is a turn-based strategy game under the art direction of Ryoma Ito (FF Tactics Advance) and the musical scoring of Ryo Yamazaki (FF: Crystal Chronicles). The game is played on a 3 x 7 (Height x Width) board where two players take turns in placing units with the ultimate goal of dealing enough damage to take down the opposing team’s captain. As simple as it sounds, things get complex when you factor in the different unit classes, unit races, levels, and ranks (upgraded units).

Heavenstrike Rivals: Captain skills sometimes spell the all the difference in combat.

Captains are not only an avatar representation of you in the game, they can also equip a skill ranging from direct damage, buffs, or healing. These are charged after usage by turn (6-9 turns) If used strategically, can instantly turn the tide of battle. If anything, Heavenstrike Rivals plays more like a collectible card game (CCG) placed on a grid board than your typical square grid strategy game like FF Tactics and similar games. Heavenstrike Rivals features six (6) unit classes and four (4) unit races: Humans, Ogurs, Felyns, and Lambkin. Each class has an inherent skill and an extra ability based on the unit type and its rarity. Unit class and race are also the basis for buff and debuff skills.

Heavenstrike Rivals: Fighters are pretty underrated due to their short attack range vs ranged units.

Fighters (movement range 2) normally have high HP and moderate amount of ATK.Their class skill is the ability gain 1 ATK every time they hit an opposing unit or the opposing captain. The longer they stay alive in combat, the higher their ATK will be.

Heavenstrike Rivals: Defenders break most rush strategies.

Defenders (movement range 2)have the highest base HP in the game and have the ability to taunt opposing units to prevent them from changing lanes. This forces attacking units to deal with the defender and prevents them from attacking your other units or your captain.

Heavenstrike Rivals: Makes opponents suffer for putting their units in a straight line.

Gunners (movement range 1) are indirect damage units capable of hitting all targets 3 spaces in front of them. Best used against enemy formations who run in a straight line.

Heavenstrike Rivals: You can beat an opponent with one attack from Scouts given the right amount of buffs and assuming they survive long enough.

Scouts (movement range 3) are the fastest units in the game who are able to attack opposing captains by their second turn. They have the lowest HP among all units but are offset with extremely powerful damage dealing capabilities through their double strike skill (attacks twice per round).

Heavenstrike Rivals: Mages are extremely powerful units. Many people hate these units.

Mages (movement range 1) attacks have splash damage. They deal half the amount of their base ATK to all adjacent units which is ideal for clearing out crowds of enemy units should they happen to be bunched up. These units can attack units or captains 3 spaces in front of them.

Priests (movement range 1) heal the unit with the lowest HP in the board once per turn. They are support units with low ATK and moderate HP to keep your attacking units in combat alive for as long as possible. They can attack units and captains two spaces in front of them.

Each unit class has either an ETB (enter the battlefield) effect or activated ability (by chance) as a skill which varies per unit. Tthe higher the rarity, the more powerful the effect. These abilities on top of the class based ones create a deep strategic environment where timing and synergy of your units with each other is key to controlling battles. This system in my opinion is what really got Heavenstrike Rivals going for me. Players Heavenstrike Rivals start out with two (2) mana and can accumulate a maximum of ten (10) mana after the first five (5) turns in combat. Units have varied casting costs from 2 to 4 mana. A player can have a total of ten (10) mana worth of units at any given time so as much as timing is the key to beating your opponents, you must also keep track of how much resources you will spend to field your units. There are cases when you max out your mana to field units and your opponent can isolate them in one side of the battlefield and create an opening for them to attack your captain with impunity. In this case, you could potentially lose the battle without any way of turning the game around.

Heavenstrike Rivals: Microtrannies, they’re never cheap.

New units can be earned through completing story missions, normal missions, daily missions, and special missions. But the quickest way to earn powerful new units is through recruitment which requires cores (the game’s cash currency). Cores can be farmed from a daily quest (1-3 cores per day) and completing story quests. As a starting player, you can accumulate over one hundred (100) cores by playing the daily core quest and completing all story missions. It takes five (5) core to recruit one 3-5 star unit or 45 core to recruit 10 3-5 star units. Statistically speaking, you will at least gain two (2) 4 star units which are more then enough to help you plow through story missions. As such, you cannot escape the fact that Heavenstrike Rivals adheres to common standards in Japanese mobile games which easily translates to spend money to recruit better units. But like most of these types of games, there are system events which will give you better incentives for recruiting at those times. You can simply save up your core for 10 recruits and consume them during these system events. All 2-5 star units can be upgraded to increase their stats and effect abilities through unit promotion and maxing out their levels. Legendary units (5-star) when promoted will become 6-star or basically “broken” units.

Chance Quickshuffle is one of the most hated units in Heavenstrike Rivals

Units with skills (outside class skills) can level-up their skills up to 4 times (to level 5). One skill level can be gained through promoting the unit to its final form, the rest leaves little to be desired. The only other way to increase skill level is to train units with the exact same unit. In other words, you need at least 4 of one specific unit to max out their skills and based on my experience, maxing skills out matters. Fortunately, most functional units can be farmed from story missions, daily missions, and special missions. Units you can farm for are actually just as important as legendary units you can gain through recruitment.

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This part will actually need some time and effort through gaining unit experience and acquiring promotion items farmed through daily quests. Upgrading units will certainly help you plow through story missions but these are really meant for you to keep up with the weekly PVP leagues, one of the biggest endgame features of Heavenstrike Rivals. If you get down to it, the AI of Heavenstrike Rivals does some pretty stupid moves (occupy one lane and keep staying there regardless of battlefield conditions) in missions as well as with your squad should you chose to use the game’s auto-play feature so the best place to get your competitive gaming fix is in the weekly PVP league. Newbies will probably fall to the bottom of the ladder due to the lack of 4-6 star units and completely upgraded regular units. The difference is overwhelming and it might discourage you granted that top players receive high tier units as rewards, as such is how mobile games operate. Game balance is skewed towards paying and long time users. Catching up to them is a matter of leveling up relevant and powerful low cost/lower rarity units (most of which can be acquired or farmed in daily and weekly missions) to their full potential. Outside of regular daily missions and recruitment using cores, Heavenstrike Rivals features weekly missions where you can farm powerful super rare units (4 star).

Farmable units are just as important as high rarity ones in Heavenstrike Rivals

I find that these units are commonly used in PVP and have great utility in PVE missions so they are must-farm units. For new players, you could miss out on the previous characters, but it is up to Square Enix to ensure that old and new player alike will be able to enjoy these farmable characters eventually. There currently are sixty-two (62) story missions for the first chapter of Heavenstrike Rivals each with increasing levels of difficulty. There is still no word on when the next chapter is set to be implemented but as most story-driven games, chapters are released in a span of more than 1 month intervals. The story of the game isn’t exactly compelling or poor, I just find it a necessity for the flavor of the game. I found that the AI is able to circumvent regular squad building rules such as (2 per unit type restrictions imposed on players) as compensation for rather shifty game-play logic. After completing the story missions, you will gain access to a high stamina and high difficulty cost dungeon which randomly rewards you with high EXP and gold along with unit EXP items, new units, and even cores.

As a relatively heavy user, I haven’t spent any money on buying cores but I have assembled a pretty strong line-up of units, the difference is my units haven’t reached maximum promotion so the odds against me when faced off with higher level squads but I will be able to catch up in due time. The PVP metagame in Heavenstrike Rivals can change on the fly like with its latest PVP league that just concluded this week which banned the usage of the Defender unit class. This modification strongly reinforced fast moving units like Scouts being able to get in range with your opponent’s captain easily since there are no enemy units which can taunt your offensive units to delay imminent attacks. With the addition of these type of PVP events, things certainly are about to get more interesting.

Heavenstrike Rivals is focusing a lot on PVP. So far, it’s pretty balanced. You just need to grind to catch up.

The visuals of Heavenstrike Rivals are vibrant and well animated but they seem to be quite heavy on resources for a mobile game. You need Android 4.1 and up or iOS 7.0 for Apple devices as a minimum requirement so older and weaker devices will not be able run the game at all. Each unit type per race have a template form factor but their costumes and design vary widely. You can clearly see a great degree of character design put into each unit type and this definitely puts extra value into collecting units. The music in Heavenstrike Rivals utilizes an orchestral ensemble and produced some of the best mobile game music I’ve heard but the voices of characters are pretty generic and bland.

Heavenstrike Rivals makes hardcore and casual PVP equally rewarding.

I am hooked Heavenstrike Rivals but it does demand a certain level of dedication and play frequency which I am unable or unwilling to fulfill most of the time, hence losing some opportunity to acquire the maximum attainable daily grind benefits. However, it isn’t that much of a turn-off as I do enjoy the PVP content even if I am frequently mismatched with extremely powerful squads. The next step for furthering game balancing could be setting squad cost requirements based on unit rarity and maximum level to prevent paying users to simply field a team with top units and maxing out their stats to dominate PVP. The game at its core is a strategy game after all. It is a pity that this game found its way to the mobile platform, I would pay for a retail version of the game (minus the micro-transactions).

Other things I would like to see in future versions of Heavenstrike Rivals: friends lists, PVP directly with people in your friends lists (playtesting), and daily Login bonuses. Come on, every other game in the same genre does it, why not here?

You can name this game as a Final Fantasy spin-off like “FF: Crystal Chronicles Dimensions” or however you want to fit in the word “3D”. I imagine that they would have called it Final Fantasysomething and deferred that idea due to less-than satisfactory sales of non-Final FantasyNumbers games. Regardless of the glaring similarities in the game system of Bravely Default with Final Fantasy games, credit must be given where it is due, it is a well made game.

Bravely Default is as turn-based as it gets.

Bravely Default is the summary of the collective experiences of classic Final Fantasy games (I through VI), updated to appeal to a younger/more casual player base. The game is also integrated with a social networking experience (Streetpass and a “Netfriend” system) to deliver a some-what refreshing RPG experience while feeling all yet too familiar to older fans of the genre with classic turn-based mechanics and the ever-loved job class system.

The story revolves around four (4) charactersnamely: Tiz Arrior, the sole survivor of a great calamity which struck his home town of Norende the wake of the disaster would be known as the “Great Chasm”. Agnes Oblige, the Vestal of Wind who has the ability to awaken crystals. Ringabel, an enigmatic man with no memories of his past with a penchant of speaking perverted thoughts out loud seemingly without knowledge of basic social graces and Edea Lee an impulsive young girl who has a very simple view on values by categorizing them as black or white. They are accompanied by the ever-charming “cryst-fairy” only known as Airy. She possesses the “collective knowledge” of all vestals of the crystal from the past and guides Agnes in awakening the crystals to prevent the end of the world.

It’s not a Square game without fantastic graphics (most of the time).

Struggling to save a world in turmoil from the crystals losing its light and the oppressive kingdom of Eternia opposing the religion of the Crystal Orthodoxy our main characters fight an uphill battle against Eternia‘s elite forces and ancient evils which have corrupted the crystals. A new job class is unlocked every time the group defeats Eternia’s top soldiers and leaders by taking their “job asterisk”. These will unlock a new set of active and passive skills which will prove vital in future boss fights and competing the game.

I must emphasize that unlocking all the job classes is absolutely essential not only for beating the game but enjoying the game to the fullest. The combinations of skills from several jobs is key to making your life a whole lot easier as proven by this interesting bit of news from Bravely Default’s Japanese release. While I didn’t bother to attempt that feat, playing Bravely Default smartly is something I agree with. Capping out your character level and getting the best gear means squat because the later chapter boss fights will prove to be impossible unless you figure out the right combinations to outlast them or even to completely suppress their relentless assaults.

The Braveand Default system makes battles more interesting. Each action a character takes costs one (1) Brave Point (BP), you can have them make a maximum of four (4) actions per turn by using the Brave command. You do not need to accumulate Brave Points to take multiple actions in one turn but when your BPfalls below zero at the start of your turn, that character cannot take an action until your BP is at least zero. The Default command simply raises your defense at no expense of BP, allowing you to accumulate Brave Points to take multiple actions without losing turns. This simple system can be used and abused based on your job skill combinations and opens up various ways to beat certain bosses. What I really like about this system is how battles turn into combinations of exciting big swings from you to your enemies at least until you figure out the extremely cheese combos which I abused ’till the end of the game.

It is very difficult to discuss Bravely Default in detail without spoiling the entire game so here is a run down on key features of the game that will help you figure out if the game is worth your time or not. But if you do pick up the game or have already done so, I invite you to look back at this review after completing the game. A lot of things will suddenly make more sense.

Good Points:

Graphics (it’s Square, duh) – Once your eyes get settled with the game after the nice CG intro, you will find that the graphics of the game is done really well. Especially with the background environments. When you leave your game idle, the map will zoom out for a breath taking scenery you can further appreciate with the 3D option of your 3DS (because 2Ds owners am cry).

It looks even better in 3D.

Streamlined game – The character XP and job XP are streamlined so that you can max everything out with little effort if you play smartly. There are a lot of features which make “grinding” a walk in the park like Auto-Battle which remembers the last actions your characters take and the option to increase or decrease your random encounter rate. You will at the least want to max out your job levels to play around with all the skills so Bravely Default gives you all the tools to play your game with ease.

Job Class System – Boss fights in later chapters will prove to be some of the best battles yet. Granted that there are some fool-proof methods to beat them, you are not limited to those combinations only (you also need to figure them out first). You can attempt to beat bosses with the various tools presented to you outside abusing the Bravely Second skill which allows you to take extra actions at no penalty and break the 9999 damage cap. You can try to beat bosses while retaining some of your favorite job classes whilst taking on a handicap because sometimes the journey is more exciting than the answer.

Character Development – There is a surprisingly huge amount of character depth despite the droll plot of the game. As you go through the course of the game, the growing cast of characters keep developing their personality to maturity.

Unacceptable!

Game Depth – This isn’t a “you will get 60 hours of game-play, this is worth it!” thing. Rather, the meat of the game is in overcoming challenges presented to you. While everything is ruined by consulting an online guide, relying on your understanding of the game’s job system is the real reward in playing Bravely Default. I mean if that is your thing.

Bad Points:

Voice Acting – This could really have been done better. They sometimes sound like they are just being played over a voice recorder and some character voice acting are just plain bland. It really puts a damper of a pretty nice soundtrack. Your usual orchestral fair.

Plot Structure – Einstein once said insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” and I couldn’t agree with it more. This does not pertain to grinding in the game but a more core aspect of the game, the plot.

Not expansive – When the game’s plot unravels, you will realize that the game world is not as expansive as you were lead on to believe.

X-Factors:

Micro-transactions – Anything under this is normally bad but it does provide a way for people to share their benefits (of dealing incredibly insane amounts of damage by using Second Points(used to activate Bravely Second) or even buying them. While viewed by some as “breaking the game”, it is an edge you have the option to use. If you pride yourself too much in being “such a hardcore gamer” don’t use: problem solved.

One thing I didn’t write much about: Special skills, lots of special skills

Social Networking Features – While Bravely Default is in the strictest sense a traditional RPG. The inclusion of the Abilink and Send Skill feature really helps break in casual gamers into the genre. Abilinksare the collective job levels your registered friends on your 3DS have already attained. You can start out a game at level but have maxed out job levels already. This takes out the grind for the player who benefits from Abilinks from early adopters. With this, new players can focus on core game-play and the story rather than take time to level up. If you have really hardcore RPG playing friends, they probably already found a way to deal hundreds of thousands of damage and can share their skill for you to summon in times of dire need, that’s if they’re not selfish. If they are, you may stumble on someone who is not as selfish, as I have. Net Friends are random people you can add up as villagers and receive their sent skills. No worries about your privacy, as this is Nintendo, absolutely no personal information Friend Codes included will be shared with these people.

Added Value – On top of the above mentioned social networking features, you can access additional content through the rebuilding orNorende. You can gain access to valuable items, weapons, Special skill parts and new costumes for your character through re-populating Norende and upgrading the shops using villages you acquire through Streetpass or from sending invitess to “Net Friends” daily. You will also receive Nemesis monsters to fight from your Streetpasses and Net Friends. These Nemesis are challenging boss monsters which drop permanent stat improving items provided you can beat them. There is a challenge for everyone all the way to level 99. While entirely optional, rebuilding Norende does unlock a lot of goodies for you.

Rebuilding Norende

New Game Plus – That’s replay value for you should you crave for more but honestly, once is more than enough. I’ve enjoyed Bravely Default thoroughlyin my first play-though.

Overall, I would still say Bravely Default is an extremely well made RPG which will appeal to its traditional fans and makes a strong attempt to break into non-RPG players through social networking. It uses its fan-base as ambassadors of the genre through Abilinks and Net Friends to give casual gamers a huge edge in the game which they would normally not attempt to achieve by spending their time grinding in the game. If you like role-playing games, this is a no-brainer. Buy it.

There are potential spoilers below. Highlight the space below at your own risk.

As a head-up to current and potential players of Bravely Default, the droll plot of the game will eventually make sense of standard RPG functions which are treated as plot holes such as save-points. He he he.

Square Enix wants to prepare us for the third and final part of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy and they are doing it in style. They’ve put together an awesome retrospective video summarizing the first two games in SNES-style 16-bit!

Complete with a chip-tuned version of the FFXIII soundtrack, this video makes me all the more excited for when Claire Farron finally returns in less than two weeks from now.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII will be available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on February 11th, 2014.

Signs of the times, or simply an inevitability? Square Enix announced today that they’ll be bringing out the 8/10ths of the full gamut of Dragon Quest games to mobile phones everywhere. The giant conglomerate of all things spiky-haired opened a microsite today announcing the release of these mobile ports and… not much else. Dragon Quests I through V have gotten several console and portable remakes, so I’m fairly curious to see what versions of the games they’ll end up using for the mobile ports, but portable DQ8 is kind of a game-changer.

The only screenshot we’ve been able to source is that of a portrait-oriented DQ8 (update: more at Squenix’ press release here)—does this mean that Level-5 or TOSE or whoever’s doing these ports have finally figured out that some of us actually want to play lengthy RPGs with one hand? Sparing the obvious puff-puff jokes, I can’t be arsed to play with landscape-oriented mobile games anymore.

These ports will be hitting Android and iOS handsets starting this Winter in Japan. Given that we haven’t even heard a peep about Dragon Quest X or the 3DS port of Dragon Quest VII‘s localization status, the chances of these games getting an English release are fairly questionable.

Square Enix handed out a special magazine that has their games lineup for 2013-2014 to the Tokyo Game Show (TGS) attendees and 30lives had the opportunity to get a copy. I took some pictures of the interesting games they have in store for us in the next few months!

As we all know, Final Fantasy X and X-2 are both remastered for the PlayStation 3 and Vita and will be released soon! According to the ad (and to the limited Japanese I know, sorry), there is also a RESOLUTION BOX which has a white Vita wi-fi model (with SKU of PCH-2000) with a special FF decal at the rear touch panel. It will also come with the two games although I’m not clear if it’s pre-installed or will be in cartridges.

Another game I’m pretty interested in is Theathrythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call. I am a big fan of the first game, clocking in more than 30 hours in the game and max leveling Sephiroth in the first few hours. You would know that this is a feat as Sephiroth is a locked character that can only be acquired by collecting the black shards (which only appears in the Chaos Shrine on notes level 80 and higher). AHEM. Anyway, Curtain Call will have new features such as ‘Quest Medley’ and ‘Versus Battle Mode’, additional 30 new characters and 40 monsters, as well as new Collect cards to look forward to! Snazzy! According to the magazine, the game will be released in Japan in Spring 2014 and I am praying hard that it sees a North American release so I don’t have to buy myself a Japanese 3DS.

Then there’s Final Fantasy Agito which is still alive for some reason! I didn’t follow the progression of the game but it looks like it’s going to be a smartphone online RPG. Graphics look impressive for a mobile game, but it’s still pretty much zzz on my part.

Speaking of mobile games, there’s a bunch coming out from SQEX starting with The World Ends With You Remix which is developed by GREE. It will be coming out for the iPhone and Android devices. The graphics look like the 2007 DS title which is good as I liked the ‘street art’ aesthetics of the game. There’s also Final Fantasy Artiks which looks like a card collecting game (CCG), Pictlogica which is a puzzle game, and Final Fantasy Brigade Break the Seal which has the adorable art style of Theathrythm! There’s a Final Fantasy IV The After Years which is already out in the Japanese iTunes App Store and Android Market which is a remaster of the game. Deadman’s Cross, a zombie shooter RPG will be released within the year and Chaos Rings Sigma will be up 2014. An interesting mobile title called Emperor’s Saga (which looks like it is based off the popular SaGa Frontier franchise) will be released on October 2013, and a new IP entitled Melpharia March for the iPhone and iPad which I’m wildly curious about because it’s a ‘line strategy’ (tower defense) game.

Kaku-San-Sei Million Arthur seems to be a popular card battle game and will be out on mobile and the Vita, along with a spin-off title called Yui-Itsu-Sei Million Arthur.

For casual fans, there’s a Kingdom Hearts browser game which looks mad cute! Basing on the screenshots, it looks like a hybrid of MMO / action / CCG as there’s a persistent world, boss battles and using cards for action. I doubt we’ll see it outside Japan though. Another BB game is Dragon Quest Monster Parade made for Yahoo! Games, which again is pretty sad because I can’t play it and it looks pretty cute.

There’s also a teaser of Final Fantasy XV which will be available on the PS4 and XBOX One, as well as Kingdom Hearts III which is tagged ‘Now in Development’. We’re all looking forward to Bravely Default for the 3DS, so there’s no need to elaborate on that. It will be released on December 5, 2013 in Japan and shortly after in the US so yay! SQEX is also coming up with a spin-off browser game called Bravely Default Praying Brage which is an online fantasy RPG.There’s a collector’s edition of Drag-On Dragoon 3 coming out on December 19, 2013 which will have CDs, DLC codes, postcard sets, artbook and more for the low, low price of 19,800 yen.

There seems to be a content expansion for MMO Dragon Quest X coming on September 26, 2013. If you can read Japanese, you can play it at http://dqx.jp.

Of course, there are the staples like Lightning Returns Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy XIV Online which I won’t talk about since there are tons of content already out. I’m still thinking of whether to FFXIV or not, but LR is a sure bet.

For SQEX partner games, there’s Call of Duty Ghosts which will be released on the Japanese PS4 on February 22, 2014, Diablo 3 for the PS3 (also 2014), and Thief which is developed by Eidos Montreal. Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag will be out on November 28, 2013, Rocksmith 2014 which features the music of B’z will also be out on November 7 and Wolfenstein The New Order will be out on 2014.

There are tons of toys and goodies as well as music CDs that I can only drool about, but I’ll be visiting Japan on the last week of November so I hope I can at least grab myself a Slime cookie tin box. Sigh.

Yep, yet another classic Final Fantasy rehash—with a twist this time. As expected, Square Enix is finally bringing Final Fantasy IV: The After Years to mobile devices, but not in the way we expected. Instead of an up-res’ed port of the 2008 WiiWare release, Matrix Software’s using the Final Fantasy IV engine to give the epilogue to 1991’s Super Nintendo classic a little facelift.

Details are scarce at the moment, but we do know that it’ll be released this Winter in Japan for iOS devices, and sometime 2014 for the Android plebe nation. The game will be released in multiple episodes, much like how it was on WiiWare (and on Japanese feature phones before it).

Squenix fans rejoiced when it was announced a few months ago that the much-clamored 3DS RPG — Bravely Default: Flying Fairy — is going to get a western release.

Meanwhile, Japan will be getting an enhanced version of the game titled Bravely Default: For the Sequel (srsly?). This version features an improved UI, a streamlined battle system, dual audio and more detailed environments.

With the delay of the western version you would think that it is only right that the enhanced version should be the one we get, right?

Popular gaming peripherals company HORI revealed their latest gaming tie-up; the Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII controller. Sporting her default costume colors Red and White, this piece of waifu hardware costs 3,980 Yen and includes a special cleaning cloth (not pictured) and connects via a 3m long cable. It’ll be for sale on Nov. 21st, the same day Lightning Returns goes into retail.

It has an overall mass/weight of 160g and comes in dimensions of 155mm x 66mm x 105mm. Compare it to a PS3 DualShock 3 controller that weighs 190g with measurements of 160mm x 97mm x 55mm.

In a recent Q&A session with the devs of the upcoming Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, main protagonist Lightning’s new character model was discussed. Our friends at Dualshockers posted a translation of the meaty (heh) part:

Q: Is it true you said you wanted Lightning-san’s size from a C cup to a D cup?

Masaru Suzuki (Designer): There’s an unreleased costume that exposes the l’Cie scar on her chest. Please think [carefully], is there any other information that should be disclosed? (laughs)

Q: So there were costumes that were rejected?

Goto: I think there are a few designs that were rejected.

Suzuki: If reproducing the outfit proves to be difficult, then I’ll consult with the artwork designer as much as possible, but if the costume design slows down to a crawl, it gets scrapped.

Q: I heard that the chest Jiggles?

Goto: Yes, her chest jiggles. Since everyone can decide what costume she’ll wear, you can make sure it does (laughs). By the way, since Lightning swings her arm when you change her weapon in the menu screen, that’s a recommended action for sure-fire jiggling! To see it even better it could be useful to equip a small shield. Look forward to it!

There you have it! It’s a bit disgusting but I have to say the way they talk about it is hilarious. They even gave tips on how to best make and see her mammaries jiggle! Square-Enix should probably rename the game when it comes to the Philippines — “Lightning Returns: From a visit to Vicky Belo”.

Square-Enix is sparing no time slacking off. They’re really pushing aggressively on marketing their newest flagship titles, namely Final Fantasy XIV ~A Realm Reborn~, Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster and of course, their holiday season offering Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. As of today, they officially launched the “Final Fantasy Go There” Campaign, which is basically a cross-collaboration between these three Final Fantasy games.

They began by introducing Lightning to the world of Eorzea in FFXIV ~A Realm Reborn~. She will be appearing as a guest character in a series of side-quests (FATE Events, specifically) where you will gain rewards such as Lightning and Snow costumes as well as Final Fantasy XIII-themed weapons for your avatars. We already covered that in a past article, so you should be familiar with this by now.

Today, the official site of Lightning Returns: FFXIII released details of their second “korabo” (collaboration – Japanese slang) with FFXIV. This time, the tables are turned as Lightning will be getting a Miq’ote (or Mithra to you FFXI nuts) costume/wear. The Miq’ote outfit for Lightning will feature a sword, shield (though which ones are not specified yet), a special victory pose and of course, the FFXIV victory fanfare.

This will be Lightning’s second cross-over wear, since her first one is with Cloud Strife where she gets his SOLDIER uniform as well as the Buster Sword and the FFVII victory fanfare.

There is also a planned cross-collaboration between Lightning Returns: FFXIII and Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, but details have yet to be revealed. Watch the SD-HD comparison video about the HD Remaster if you haven’t yet. It’s mind-blowing.

If you haven’t been reading our article about why Lightning will be making an appearance in Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV ~A Realm Reborn~, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Announced some time ago by FFXIV Producer Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) in the Japan Expo in Paris, here are some (if not all) of the rewards you’ll be getting once you’re done with Lightning-related side-quests in the game. Lightning’s costume on a Lalafell is an acquired taste.

No official confirmation yet if male characters will also be given the chance to get Lightning’s costume. If it’s possible I’ll definitely get it, because I’m fabulous.

Or you can use common sense and assume that all guys will get Snow’s costume, and all girls will get Lightning’s.

Aside from the costumes, FFXIII-themed weapons will also be included in the mix, and those who played the game will recognize to whom these weapons originally belong to.

There is also no confirmation if these weapons will have any vital stats or if they’re just cosmetic or event-related with limited battle capabilities. Details will come later as they become available.

Don’t forget, Final Fantasy XIV ~A Realm Reborn~ will be officially out August 27th, but you’ll be given early access by pre-ordering the game now on Amazon or the Square-Enix Online Store.

It’s not special that I’m a Legacy player of Final Fantasy XIV, though I didn’t get my Conjurer past the endgame because I seriously got pissed off at it and marched straight back to Vana’diel in Final Fantasy XI. Fast forward, years later I once again find myself, this time with the entire 30lives team in the Beta test on newly-resuscitated Final Fantasy XIV ~A Realm Reborn~…

…which brings us to the topic at hand. Working with the worldwide community of almost a million, Naoki Yoshida (aka Yoshi-P) detonated a bomb that caused quite a stir online: Lightning, the pink-haired “female Cloud Strife” star of Final Fantasy XIII will be in the game in a series of special side-quests, and no it’s not a clone, not a Lightning wannabe in the world of Hydaelyn, but the actual Lightning herself.

Perusing through Japanese forums and comments on Niconico Douga, fans say harmless things like キモイ (Kimoi; Eww) to as far as 裏切りだ (Uragiri da; You Traitor). Funny, I don’t remember hearing people bitch about it when Cloud Strife appeared in Final Fantasy Tactics not once, but twice (if you consider Shishi Sensou;War of The Lions as a “different” game).

With fans demanding an explanation for this “abomination”, Yoshi-P wrote a letter exclaiming why he’s doing it and I quote ad verbatim:

“The story that answers these questions is already being created and it will also be related to the Lightning saga. This is not just a Lightning clone showing up in Eorzea; it is the one and only Lightning. We are also creating a lot of character dialogue for Lightning as well as special cut scenes. We’ve established a proper story, and I hope you’re excited to see it.”

Interestingly, he followed it up with :

We will never introduce characters that would destroy their meaning or story

We will not use characters that are already dead or whose role has ended in their title

So he’s basically telling you that he’s putting in Lightning because he can and because he wants to, so shut up and just deal with it. I also can’t help but think this crossover is but a cross-promotion for the upcoming game Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. I personally don’t mind her, in fact I’m GLAD they decided to shoehorn her in, rather than Vanille, Hope, or worse… ugh Serah. That’s just my opinion though.

Alright, I wanna go on the record that I personally abhor browser games. However, acceptance is the first step to recovery, so I’ll gladly admit they can be VERY addicting and fun. Social games aren’t necessarily new, though borderline casual, we get to play a lot of those these days, especially on mobile devices *koffCandyCrushkoff*. Sadly, it’s a crime I’m guilty of (casual games, not Candy Crush in particular).

First off, you will need a Yahoo! Japan account. It’s free. Google it up to find how to sign up for one. Next, you’ll need Adobe Flash, the latest version (I think it’s 11 as of this writing, correct me if I’m wrong). Once you have an account, head over to the official site to start playing right away! Once you log in with your Yahoo! JP credentials, you’ll be prompted to input a Square Bridge name (a username), and that’s it!

You will now be prompted to create your avatar. I chose the “Cool Black” suit, because it well… looks cool. It also looks like Squall Leonhart’s (FF8) attire. Next you’ll have to choose one of the five “Unions” or factions. They are: Unicornis (Unicorn), Anguis (Cobra), Leopardos (Leopard), Wolpeus (Wolf) and Urzus (Bear).

Once the game goes live, you may party with your friends who belong to the same Union such as you, so pick carefully, or demand they pick the same Union as yours! I chose Wolpeus because I love pink. Shut up.

You will now begin the tutorial, but first things first, you will be introduced to an adorable new character called Cheerithy. He/she will explain to you that you’re a Keyblade Master, and your purpose is to retether and reassemble with light (Lux) all that the darkness has done to the world. If you played Kingdom Hearts games you’ll know this by now.

Your AP gauge (yellow bar on the top right of the screen) is basically your energy. Performing actions in the map such as opening treasure chests, picking up items and attacking monsters consume AP. Once you run out of this, you can’t do anything to progress. However, it can be replenished when you level up or by using a Potion (which is conveniently given to you as a reward, or may possibly be a micro-transaction when the game goes live).

Map movement is simply done by clicking on the left mouse button. Your avatar will automatically jump on or over obstacles when able. Your cursor will turn into a red crosshair when targeting Heartless, or green when targeting items and chests. All you have to do is simply click on it, and the game will do its thing automatically. This is the laziest Kingdom Hearts game you’ll ever get to play in your life.

Kingdom Heartsχ uses a randomized card-based battle system like the Game Boy Advance game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. However, this browser game is a HUGE step up, as you can mash together cards to level them up, in effect enhancing their potency and effects. Cards are classified into two: Attack and Assist.

Attack cards are what your avatar will use against the Heartless, and it has three types: Speed (Green), Power (Red) and Magic (Blue). Speed Cards are usually quick and thrusting moves (Sora, Cloud Strife), Power Cards are slower, but more potent slashes (Rikku, Goofy) and Magic are ranged/projectiles (Donald, Yuffy). Assist Cards, such as Chip and Dale or Huey, Dewey and Louie often provide passive effects.

You may “craft” or level-up your cards by mashing together cards of the same character. For instance, you may upgrade Sora if you have more than one Sora card of the same illustration. Although Sora and Aladdin are both Speed Attack cards, you cannot combine them together. The same thing applies to Assist Cards as well. You may acquire cards for free during the “Daily Draw”, or by buying Draw chances as a micro-transaction. Sometimes they can also appear in treasure chests.

Keyblades can also be upgraded, provided you have the materials. Anywhere in the map you’ll see some “sparkling” little things on the floor that can be targetable, Pick those to gather your ingredients. Upgrading your Keyblade boosts attack power, and it is shown on the illustrations. For instance, your first upgrade, the “Starlight” multiplies Speed Attack power by 1.1. Keep collecting, and as you progress you will eventually learn more recipes!

Every now and then, a “server-wide” monster called a Raid Boss will spawn, and it’s in the form of a Darkside, the giant muscular Heartless with Pantene-enriched hair. You have one hour to take him down and get all the Lux (light), Munny and EXP you need. Take note that you will most likely lose from it, and at this early stage of the game, you’re basically a one-hit fodder, and I estimate him to have around 10 million HP.

Rally your friends in the same Union and obliterate him! He may kill you in one hit, but his HP won’t regenerate, so as long as you have enough BP, you may fight him. Your avatar has 5 BP, which can be replenished by using Ethers, or through support by your friends or Unionmates. To the best Union goes the spoils!

Of course, it’s no Kingdom Hearts if it has no Disney involved! Currently there are three playable areas in the game, the Dwarf Woodlands (Snow White & The Seven Dwarves), Wonderland (Alice in Wonderland) and Agrabah (Aladdin). The remaining two worlds, and possibly more will be unlocked soon, or perhaps when the game is fully released. So let’s wrap up this review with a small summary of my opinions:

GOOD POINTS:

The music is spectacular and top-notch, despite some being remixes of old Kingdom Hearts tracks.

New content needs to be expanded more, but based on open beta data, it’s plenty. I have high expectations for this title.

I have not had this much fun on a free browser game since Dragon Age Legends, and I will most likely play this when it’s fully released. Sadly, micro-transactions are disabled in this open beta bild, so I can’t quote how much Potions, Ethers and Card Draws cost, but I bet it’s gonna cost a lot.

Kingdom Heartsχ is one of the most beautiful and polished browser games I’ve ever played, reminding me so much of Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy. IMO Square-Enix did a very good job, except it’s only in Japanese. This game needs an English localization. Although I do speak Japanese, for the sake of my fellow Kingdom Hearts fans who don’t, they must NOT be allowed to miss this title, especially with all the hype about Kingdom Hearts 3 and the fact that Tetsuya Nomura himself wanted to see Star Wars on this upcoming title.

Yes, I know. I suck for not playing and getting this game when it first came out last year. I blame my initial impressions with open world games. I never got into the Grand Theft Auto series and why people praise it to high heavens. I tried again with Red Dead Redemption since the theme is different, but alas, I still was not impressed by Rockstar. LA Noire came into the picture a few years ago and I played it until four to five cases, but never got to finish it even though it was loads better than the other games I tried previously. Thus ended my interest in sandbox games and I committed a capital sin by not giving Sleeping Dogs a once-over when it was released last year.

Then the PlayStation Plus freebie happened. I looked at the game (after being pimped to death in the Square Enix crazy sales a few months back which I also passed on), and said why not? It’s free anyway. Queued it, downloaded and played for an hour. One hour became two, then three. I realized I cannot put the controller down despite it being 1:00 AM already. To borrow Reggie’s infamous quote, “My body is ready” for open world games, finally.

In this life, loyalty is everything

To be honest, there is nothing hugely spectacular with Sleeping Dogs. It has the same formula as the Grand Theft Auto games, maybe a marriage of it and LA Noire even. I never got into the two games maybe because the themes are not so much to my liking. GTA lets me live a life of crime by working as a thug for local gangs or something, while in LA Noire I am a straight arrow cartoony looking cop. Sleeping Dogs let me enjoy the two sides of the coin at the same time by playing as Wei Shen, an undercover police officer trying to infiltrate the Sun on Yee, which is one of the more prominent triads in Hong Kong. A childhood friend named Jackie Ma assists you and vouches for you to get the trust of one of the “red poles” of Sun on Yee. You eventually become the right-hand man by doing the gang’s dirty work to earn their trust. On the side though, you provide vital information to the police to facilitate their undoing.

The Good:

Above average story writing. Well, the story is not that unique as there are probably tens of Hong Kong movies centered around the theme of being an undercover cop trying to infiltrate a gang, but somehow this shallow plot works for the game. It gives a lot of room for doing a number of fun side missions but can still stay true to the linear plot . The dialogues are well-written; it is mostly in English but peppered with Cantonese phrases every now and then which really makes you feel the setting of the game. I also learned some cuss words and gang stuff in Cantonese, so yeeeeahhhh I feel like a tough guy.

Memorable characters. The characters are well-developed and have different motivations in their being in a gang. You will feel their indifference to you at the start when you are still a lowlife thug trying to move your way up in the triad, but will later warm up to you as you prove your loyalty and service to them. While playing as lead character Wei Shen, his back story develops through progressing in the game and is also supplemented by report files that you get as rewards in the game (you can read character profiles and reports through your mobile phone). You will also get to learn to love the gang members, even though they are ultimately bad people by being in the business, but the game gave them redeeming qualities and interesting personalities to make you want to root for them somehow.

Stellar voice acting. Sleeping Dogs has one of the best voice over works I have heard in a video game. This might be because they enlisted popular actors to do the voice work of the characters which really made them come to life. Wei Shen is voiced by Will Yun Lee, Jackie Ma by Edison Chen and Uncle Po by James Hong. Supporting characters include Emma Stone, Lucy Liu, Kelly Hu and a lot of celebrities. This is voice acting done right, video games people; there are lots to be learned from United Front Games.

Racing is one of the more enjoyable side missions in Sleeping Dogs

Entertaining side missions. Normally I skip side missions in games especially if the game’s story is super interesting to cut into pieces, but the ones in Sleeping Dogs are equally entertaining. They range from infiltrating illegal racing circuits (so of course you get to drive around Hong Kong), doing drug busts (you are still a police officer after all), joining martial art fight clubs and well, karaoke with the ladies. See, there are tons of things to do and all of them are fun as hell.

The music is all parts awesome. Like Grand Theft Auto, music blares when you are riding your car. The radio stations have different themes so you can choose to rock out to heavy metal (Roadrunner Records station), indie (Kerrang Radio), hiphop (Real) or even Cantonese Pop and orchestra (Ninja Tunes and Softly). One thing I was disappointed about is that the ads are pretty serious so you don’t hear any funny ads or talk shows like in GTA.

Overall gameplay. You get to fight in fisticuffs or shoot using pistols, machine guns or even a freaking grenade launcher. There are simple puzzle decoding activities to get into goodies, and loads of stuff that will make you feel like a Hong Kong action star. The game is very well-rounded and offers a lot of things to do in the game so you do not get bored by being stuck doing the same things over and over.

The Bad:

Minor bugs. There are some bugs in the game which breaks the game’s seriousness sometimes, but nothing that will destroy the flow of the game so I didn’t mind it that much. There are times that the boss would taunt me while I beat him up and then his dialogue / voice continues to play even though he’s already dead. Also, this is probably not a bug but sometimes when I fight with the thugs and I have only like one hit left on my life bar, I die from being PUSHED by a gangster. Yeah it’s considered a hit, I guess, but it’s just funny to die by just being pushed though.

Map icons. It could be fine-tuned as some of the icons of drug bust locations are actually inaccessible by the route that the GPS maps out. Not that serious, but it can be fixed.

I wanted more…

Emma Stone? I was stoked to see Emma Stone’s name on the game’s starting credits roll but dismayed to find out I have already finished the game and only had like two interactions with her character (Amanda Cartwright). What’s up with that? I am still playing the game to get all the trophies though so I am still hoping I get to bump on her somewhere.

Things That Could Swing Either Way:

Graphics. To be fair, I played this on the PlayStation 3. I cannot say if it’s any better on the PC, but I am guessing it would be especially if you have an awesome rig. The textures sometimes take a while to load and they’re not as amazing as well, LA Noire or The Last of Us in terms of facial expressions and whatnot but it’s not too bad.

Overall, Sleeping Dogs is a solid game that still deserves your purchase (yes, it has already cycled out of the PlayStation Plus free games). The game has the right amount of length story-wise, and there are tons of things left to do even if you finish the game by doing only the core missions. The writing is superb, the voice acting stellar, the music gives the right vibe to the Hong Kong triad scene and the brawling and shooting is mad, mad fun.

Finally, an MMO that’s actually worth looking at: Famitsu announced last night on their live stream that Dragon Quest X—previously only available on the Wii and Wii U—will also be coming to Windows PCs. This will be the first DQ game made available on home computers since the first two DraQue(insert cringe here) games received enhanced ports on Konami’s MSX2, NEC’s PC-9801 and the legendary Sharp X6800. This is fairly significant news and I wonder how it affects licensing and localization to English-speaking territories.

The benchmarking tool is already out and I’m fairly confident that if you have a PC built within the last five years you’ll be able to run this thing. Crafty, non-Japanese speakers can also elect to join the game’s public beta by following a few steps (courtesy of NeoGAF, thank you enterprising nerds doing all the hard work!):

Square Enix Account Creation:

Launcher and Game Setup:

Dragon Quest X was released last August and received an enhanced port to the Wii U this March, marking the series first real foray into the online space (DQ9 was supposed to be an online multiplayer in a similar vein, but was changed further into development). The game mixes the series’ standard JRPG gameplay with online, party-based battles.

Looks like my April 1 post was not that far off, since a part of it went true already! Square Enix has opened a branch in Indonesia called Square Enix Smileworks. Indonesia was chosen as the company’s first expansion in Southeast Asia because of the country’s economic growth and people’s spending power.

Square Enix Smileworks will publish games from its mother company in Indonesia and will also be creating content for the Southeast Asian market. The company started small with 23 employees which were mostly from the Japanese office and is now focused on creating social games.

This is positive news and I sincerely hope Square Enix considers Manila next. We have a young working population, our spending power is improving and game development seems to be a thriving industry (in terms of mobile games and smartphone applications anyway). Here’s hoping.

In a recent interview by RPGsite with Final Fantasy X producer Yoshinori Kitase revealed the challenges of developing the HD remake and teases us the possibilities of more HD remakes of beloved Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy XII to be exact. All these possibilities seem to hinge on the success of the Final Fantasy X and X-2 HD remakes which were announced as early as the Tokyo Game Show in 2011 and is just about to see the light of day two years later in 2013 due to development challenges. I’m pretty sure everyone will be excited at the prospect of a Final Fantasy XII HD remake. I sure as hell am, having forgone the opportunity to play the game back in the day.

Not gonna lie; still a Final Fantasy fan. Even though I was pretty much heartbroken at the end of Final Fantasy 13, and did not even bother to finish Final Fantasy 13-2 (Serah, zzz), I am still looking forward to a numbered Final Fantasy title. I am, and forever will remain, a Japanese RPG gamer, yo. So color me excited when news of Final Fantasy Versus XIII broke in E3! The game is now renamed (or promoted) to an actual standalone Final Fantasy title as Final Fantasy XV. Behold, actual game play video!

The battle system looks like it’s going to be more of real-time action combat since one of the more noticeable things in the video is that the ATB gauge is not present anymore. Also, the environment reacts to the actions of the characters in the game (everything seems to be destructible) so it makes more sense to use this to support the active combat of the game. What is also interesting is that your party members can sometimes take part in the attacks to support you and makes for a more interactive type of play (even if you’re just nolifing the game by yourself, lol). In the video, it looks like lead character Noctis can use various weapons (as seen on the bottom left part of the user interface), and can also use warp skills while attacking. Sweet.

A lot of people have hated Tetsuya Nomura (character designer of popular Square titles such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts) for always giving the characters some wild hairstyle or flashy jewelry, but I totally dig the design for Final Fantasy XV. Looks like he toned down with the spiky hairstyle and the flamboyant silvers, but you can still see his signature style which makes for effeminate but extremely good-looking men in game. WANT.

Altair totally using his blending skills to jump into a new game

After the announcement of the game being available for the green guys (XBOX One), PlayStation fanboys all went home and cried their eyeballs to sleep. No seriously though, how could you expect it to stay exclusive when Final Fantasy 13 already got released for the XBOX 360? Just pray that the game will be well-received so we can enjoy more Final Fantasy games in the future. As for me, it will be day 1 buy for whatever next-gen console I will decide to get first.

After Final Fantasy director Tetsuya Nomura revealed the 15th core Final Fantasy game at the Sony E3 presentation, he also left us with a teaser trailer of the third Kingdom Hearts game for the PlayStation 4.

After so many spin-offs and remakes we are finally getting the real Kingdom Hearts 3! It’s so great, guys! :D **

**Fake excitement from the author as he is not really a Kingdom Hearts fan.